Things you like from Fallout 3

[Veers]

Point Lookout is one of my favorite areas of any Fallout game, honestly. The atmosphere and concept are incredible.

 

[Risewild]

Wall of text about why I don't like Point Lookout (open at your own risk):

Spoiler: Why I don't like Point Lookout

It's a pity that it's the most unoptimized area of any Fallout game too. We have been "fixing" it for years in TTW and we still get FPS bogging down in some Point Lookout areas. We are still fixing it to this day.

It's also a pity that enemies have magic damage added to their attacks that can't be reduced in any way, so it doesn't matter what your DR is, you always take that damage + some actual normal attack damage.

Some close-quarters swampfolk hit harder than Deathclaws (even without the damage bonus), other swampfolk are more durable than Super Mutant Masters...

Another thing about Point Lookout, is that if you play a melee/unarmed character, you can't defeat Professor Calvert's tank. Melee and unarmed attacks don't do any damage to it. So it can screw a player that doesn't walk around with any other weapons or that doesn't have enough ammo.

Desmond is an ass, and I don't like how we are forced to help him the first time we meet him.

In terms of side-quests, most are quite boring too, and the main quest isn't very good either.
It's sad that the quest about the Krivbeknih was changed to be what it is in the final version of Point Lookout, the cut quest was way more interesting and (in my opinion) much better.

The equipment added by this DLC is also not impressive and it's mostly boring:

I like how it added Double Barrel Shotguns though. The Bio-Gas Canisters are interesting since they create a gas cloud, but they are pretty useless, since the gas cloud doesn't damage the enemies and if you ignite the cloud, the damage done is very little.

The rest are not that interesting.

We have Lever-action Rifles, but they are not comparable with the Lincoln's Rifle that came with the base game.
We have Axes which is great (I'm a melee/unarmed kind of player), but I hate their world models (the axe's head looks weird to me, they could have picked so many different woodsman axe models that look nice and they went with that?).
They added a unique Ritual Knife which is the best of all Kitchen Knife weapons, but it's still useless compared to other knife weapons in the game, so I don't know who would actually use it as a weapon
They also added a damn Toy Knife... A Toy Knife... Are they serious? It's fast alright, but it breaks super fast, deals almost no damage (1 base damage) and you can't repair it unless you pay a merchant to repair it... That's dumb.
They added Shovels as weapons, another good thing for melee players, but again, the model looks awful (like the Axe, the Shovel's head looks weird)... Also, IIRC they messed up the texture and the 1st person model uses the texture of the third person, which is lower quality and looks bad.
The best weapon in the DLC is also the worse, the Microwave Emitter is one of the most powerful energy weapons in the game that doesn't use Alien Ammo (and it also ignores armor), but it has a lesser DPS than plasma rifles, it's a slow weapon, also has slow projectiles, it's shooting sound is annoying, it's enormous and blocks a large part of the screen, it's ugly, has small ammo capacity. It's also the damn reward of finishing the DLC...

I find the hallucination part interesting, but it has some bugs/glitches/oversights that can destroy "immersion". Like how you can eat the non-real dead bodies if you have the cannibal perk (and still gain HP), how you can see Elder Lyons even if you haven't met him yet, how you can render illusionary Mister Burke unconscious and pickpocket his ammo (and still have the ammo after you wake up), how you can kill illusionary ghouls and their bodies stay there after the illusion ends and can be looted, etc.

For these things and other smaller ones, I can't say I like Point Lookout that much.

Things I like about Fallout 3:

• Washington's Architectural Style
• I like exploring the Museums
  • I don't like how there isn't enough to explore in most Museums though, I wish there was more to them and that some areas were blocked by ruble, instead of have actually been built and placed in the game.
• I like being able to climb to the top of Washington Monument
• I like the choice in The Pitt DLC.
  • Although it's quite black and white if the player actually listens to the characters. But it seems like it still manages to deceive quite a lot of players, that think helping Wernher is the good solution, so I guess that's something good in the DLC.

I can't think of anything else right now.

 

[NMLevesque]

• Having a hub with a player home
• Being able to just explore aimlessly. They kept the amount of backtracking fairly low, rewarded wandering, and didn't bog the player down with zigzagging errands to do in a particular sequence.
• Gimmicky crafteable weapons that provide unique gameplay
• Patchwork
• DC, despite its invisible walls and at time confusing metro tunnels. It's a lot easier to navigate if you pay attention to the signs and the local map, but there' still mystery to where you'll end up, IE what you'll find when you resurface.
  
  Dungeons in games usually loop back to their entrance, but in DC the dungeons are there to link the above ground sections. I think there's something cool about that. The reward is where you end up, not so much what you find inside them. Of course I find exploring a ruined city, as wild as the open country, and just as split amongst factions to be really satisfying.
  
• The Pitt is a good take on the ol' rob the player of all their stuff and force them to scavenge everything to survive trope. It has actual writing, a strong atmosphere, and adds gear that I actually want to use for some other reason than it wrecks bullet sponges.
  
• Getting power armor was handled well in the vanilla game. It would have been much better if the T-51b at Fort Constantine came with power armor training, but you can always scale the rubble around the Citadel to clip your way inside whenever you feel like it even on consoles.
• Cosplaying as Abraham Lincoln

 

[Millim]

Base Game-
Exploring a dead World is pretty fun
The Soundtrack bs pretty good
Leaving the Vault for the first time is handled Pretty well
Vault 87, from atmosphere to the fact the game doesn't hold your hand
Power Armour that yells at you if you're in stealth mode
VATs in a decent comprise for turn based in real time action

DLC
Point Lookout, while it has its issues with OP enemies (even at Level 30, feral ghouls are incredibly difficult for no real reason), it adds another chunk of the map that I feel has a very fun and interesting atmosphere.
The Pitt, I feel this would have been great if they had spent more time on it.

 

[Hoplite]

Liam Neeson told me he's proud of me more times in my first run of Fallout 3 than my father ever has

The basic gameplay loop was fun. I just wish both players and enemies hit harder.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Generally speaking the world and a lot of the objects was well designed. To tell the truth, I prefer Bethesda's laser/plasma designs to Black Isle's, which look much more goofy and unrealistic.

 

[Gizmojunk]

Base game: I liked the landscaping... That's pretty much it, even though it was inappropriate. A superb rendition of the Fallout setting*, but of 20 years or less after the great war of 2077; it is not proper for the setting some three hundred years later. Bethesda is out of their mind.

*This does not include the NPC's or the bogus quality of their writing.

Non-gameplay related peeve: They reimagined many of the preexisting props that appear in the world as relics... relics that are no longer designed as they originally appeared in the past; established in the previous games.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

In terms of side-quests, most are quite boring too, and the main quest isn't very good either.
It's sad that the quest about the Krivbeknih was changed to be what it is in the final version of Point Lookout, the cut quest was way more interesting and (in my opinion) much better.

What was the original quest about then?


I guess the landscape the first time I left the Vault though I already knew from spoilers and reviews that there would not be any content that would really grab my attention like Fallout 1 and 2 did.

In general most of Fallout 3's content was pointless.

 

[Atomic Postman]

• Art design for everything is superb. A true realization of the Fallout aesthetic, the blend of 50's retrofuture, art-deco and tinges of the gothic. We can entirely thank Adam Adamowicz for this, and the art direction in Fallout 4 speaks volumes about his absence
  
• Growing up in the Vault has aspects of a great sequence. It lets you feel settled/comfortable like a Bilbo Baggins in the Shire. It is too linear and "cinematic", yes, but on first playthrough escaping the Vault to the surface does feel like an adventure into the unknown
  
• Little explorable dungeons/areas throughout the Wasteland. Despite the fact that this mindset degenerated immediately into Skyrim and Fallout 4's "kill-loot-return" draugr/ghoul boxes sours this, but I have always said that my perfect Fallout game would involve the map/area design of Bethesda Fallout with the worldbuilding/quest-content of Obsidian. The Mojave was packed with quality content, but it was lacking in exploration/dungeoneering.
  
• It was set on the East Coast, and not the West Coast. They didn't soil Black Isle's Territory.

 

[Risewild]

What was the original quest about then?

It was supposed to be like this:

At some point during development the plot of this quest was dramatically different. Rather than asking the player character to seek the book directly, Obadiah would instead request that a letter be delivered to Marcella. This letter in turn is revealed to be a plea for help from Obadiah, who Marcella describes as "a good man, but his family has an evil past."

Marcella explains to the Lone Wanderer that the Krivbeknih was a Blackhall family heirloom with a dark past, the origin of "the heathen Krvibi ritualists" (presumably a group of swampfolk, though not specified), and one Obadiah had hoped to have gotten rid of for good. Marcella states she has separate knowledge that the book, stolen years ago without the knowledge of the Krvibi, has somehow made its way back to Point Lookout in the hands of the Krvibi, who now hold the book. At this point the Lone Wanderer would be tasked with obtaining the Krivbeknih from the ritual site, the location given by Marcella.

After obtaining the book, Marcella would be found dead. However, dialogue with Obadiah later would indicate that it was Krvibi who had murdered her. Blackhall reacts with shock at both Marcella's death as well as the presence of the book, which he had assumed was long gone after it was stolen years ago. His reaction to the latter is more severe, as he then explains that it his obligation to destroy it as "the last Blackhall." The only way he knows to do so requires a sacrifice, namely Obadiah himself, especially since the Krvibi would almost certainly kill him in order to get the book back.

Although he is committed to sacrificing himself in order to be rid of the "family Bane," if prompted, Obadiah explains that there is one other way he could think of to destroy the book, though it is beyond his abilities.

“There is... another option. I could never make the journey myself, though. North, far to the north. Constance had a brother, Richard Dunwich. He was a wealthy businessman outside of the city to the north, had a company building there. His obsession with the occult was as great as her own, and there's an object of great evil in that building. The book has been drawn to it before. To take the book there would destroy it. You would have to take that journey, though, and you must not fail if you attempt it.”

At this point the player character would be given the option of accepting the task and taking the Krivbeknih to the Obelisk housed in the Dunwich Building in order to destroy it, or telling Obadiah, "I'm sorry, I think you have to do this on your own." Obadiah would agree if the latter choice is selected, and presumably would proceed to execute the ritual and sacrifice himself.

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

I am not sure if I would hold the art style of Fallout 3 or 4 as superior as that of Fallout 1 and 2.
If anything I would rather wish the art style of Fallout 1 and 2 was expanded on, given more detail while new assets in the same style was created.

If anything I find that it has created a disparity between FO1/2 and FO3/NV.
It is more like "Fallout 3, inspired by Fallout 1/2" (or knock off)

 

[Atomic Postman]

I am not sure if I would hold the art style of Fallout 3 or 4 as superior as that of Fallout 1 and 2.
If anything I would rather wish the art style of Fallout 1 and 2 was expanded on, given more detail while new assets in the same style was created.

If anything I find that it has created a disparity between FO1/2 and FO3/NV.
It is more like "Fallout 3, inspired by Fallout 1/2" (or knock off)

Fallout 4's style is very much alien that of 3/NV. I would also say that Adamowicz's art direction on 3 is very much expanding upon Fallout 1 and 2. You could slide building or robot designs from either game into eachother and they would be a solid fit. You obviously could not do this with Fallout 4' style, which was Jetsons meets Pixar.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I would also say that Adamowicz's art direction on 3 is very much expanding upon Fallout 1 and 2.

I didn't see that at all.
Liking it is fine, but the reasoning doesn't seem appropriate. The premise was wrong; it was all bass ackwards.

FO3 designs looked like a 50's versions of the future, rather than a futuristic design with 50's aesthetics.

You could slide building or robot designs from either game into eachother and they would be a solid fit. You obviously could not do this with Fallout 4' style, which was Jetsons meets Pixar.

The buildings were the first problem, they looked like ruined 50's architecture; they should have looked like the ruined post millennium future metropolis. Think of a pre-Jetsons era, not the Andy Griffith Show.

And the robots... ah... no.

You obviously could not do this with Fallout 4' style, which was Jetsons meets Pixar.

I have not played FO4, but that at least sounds like they were finally listening.

https://gizmodo.com/42-visions-for-tomorrow-from-the-golden-age-of-futurism-1683553063

 

[Lidku]

The Pitt DLC. Its the only time Besthesda actually got Fallout right.

Besides that there isn't anything really good about Fallout 3 in all honesty.

 

[SquidWard]

It got me Fallout New Vegas

In all seriousness? The Pitt, I guess. Lookout was okay but could have been much better. Zeta and Anchorage are complete shit. Some of the art style was done fairly well. Being on the opposite coast would have been a positive if they didn't bring every other mutant and faction along with them. Things that Pitt and 76 did right were new mutants for the East Coast.

It's a pity that it's the most unoptimized area of any Fallout game too. We have been "fixing" it for years in TTW and we still get FPS bogging down in some Point Lookout areas. We are still fixing it to this day.

My friend's PS3 save got stuck there because the framerate was around 1 or it just froze whenever he loaded that save. I know the way PS3 used memory wasn't good for Bethesda games but Point Lookout literally made him stop playing because it was the last thing he had in the game to do and he couldn't do anything there.

 

[Atomic Postman]

I didn't see that at all.
Liking it is fine, but the reasoning doesn't seem appropriate. The premise was wrong; it was all bass ackwards.

I must disagree. The architecture in DC, the art-deco flavoured dark concrete with the "angel" figures and monolith faces is entirely consistent with the architecture shown in Necropolis (both in the game maps and in the intro) as well as the Hub. I'd be willing to wager you could make a faithful recreation of the Hub using Fallout 3's architectural assets. You couldn't do the same with Fallout 4's.

These all look tonally consistent with eachother, IMO:

Whereas this from Fallout 4, not so much.

Similarly, the design of the retro-future technology is also consistent, to my mind, from Fallout 1. Some stuff like the wall-mounted couch sized super-computers often found in Vaults look like they literally tried to 1:1 recreate it. They aren't recreations in many areas, clearly, but that was my point. Adamowicz's aesthetic built upon and did it's own thing from Interplay's, but it was entirely tonally consistent. In a scare few areas I'd even say superior, namely I'm thinking of the Sentry Bot design in 2 compared to 3/NV.

The burnt out wreckage of cars are also consistent, and apeing the 50's in the vehicular aspect is certainly in-line considering the Highwayman is a 1959 Plymouth and any Van Buren conceptuals with vehicles in them clearly show them as being a particular streak of 50's car.

The adamowicz style was also exactly what you describe, futuristic with 50's blends and not the other way around. I don't know about you, but in real life we didn't have domineering bleak art-deco monoliths on every corner, but in Fallout, that is the case.

 

[Lidku]

I would also agree with this. Another bone I'll give to Bethesda is the aesthetic they established for Fallout 3. It was extremely well done, but alas in truth Besthesda fashion they squandered it by removing it entirely and producing the graphical aesthetic crap we got in Fallout 4. When I look at the graphical designs they went with in Fallout 4, I just KNEW that they decided to go full in with changing the whole identify of Fallout, how it feels in particular. The renditions found in Fallout 4 were horrible Clay looking ripoffs of how Fallout is supposed to be.

 

[Cathedral Psyker]

Some of the characters, despite living isolated and enclosed plot-wise, have interesting or memorable premises.

• Namely, Dukov with his inexplicable Russian accent and equally peculiar possession of his mansion. There is one quest which factors into acquiring the T-51 B armor (You gotta shoot ‘em in the head) in which you find out he was a mercenary. However respected or feared a fighter he may be, that doesn’t immunize him against slavers, raiders, potential Enclave patrols, or super mutants.

• Agatha, a nice innocent old lady who asks you to retrieve a rare Stradivarius in exchange for... a unique scoped .44 magnum? She too just happily lives in a shack with no fear of all of the above.

• Reilly’s Rangers were pretty cool- basically a mercenary company that punches above its weight class.

• The family in Arefu were pretty stupid in the way they drink blood but still added flavor to the world. They remind me of a mix of the Kings and the slags near Modoc.

• The egomania of Dave in the republic of Dave was pretty funny.

• One of the most disturbing things that will take you by surprise is the mad preacher in the east of D.C. He rants from a hollowed our second floor and threatens to ‘blow all of us sky high, including the worm (sic)’. Sure enough, he makes good on the promise if you enter the alley.

• Sierra Petrovita was quite delusional in her love of Nuka-Cola, and there was that one clown taking advantage of her naïveté.

In the case of most of these characters, it doesn’t make sense that they can get by fine while a fortified Big Town can’t survive without the Lone Wanderer’s help. In that sense the worldbuilding isn’t as tight as the Interplay and Obsidian games. Not only must inhabitants be safe, but they must have a source of sustenance, water, and preferably medical care. The plot of the game is centered around making fresh water abundant. When the Capital Wasteland was retconned to be as severe as the glowing sea, it makes less sense that anyone would continue to inhabit it. You would think that there would a total exodus from such a difficult land.

It’s not realistic that abandoned grocery stores can still have food after 200 years. Little Lamplight is garbage.

As for DLCs

• Operation anchorage is an fps sequence that doesn’t add much to the ‘rpg’ experience despite scenery changes. Its main worth is indirectly putting you into the mindset of a pre-war general, seeing as Constantine Chase designed it.

• The Pitt reminds me of the quest to free Adytum of the regulators, or similar Fallout 1/2 town quests.

• Mothership Zeta is awful for implying aliens did the Great War. Limited traces of alien tech are acceptable but an over the top portrayal detracts from the setting. If aliens were to be more involved in Fallout, I’d rather it be aliens conducting sociological experiments with wastelanders in resource destitute areas.

• Broken Steel and the main story are alright if you like BOS good Enclave bad plots with less sophistication than a Scooby Doo episode. I’d rather have less certain heroes and villains for a complex political situation like NV.

The dank atmosphere of subways, DC ruins, and mutant camps was satisfying to explore. Surviving on very hard was a decent challenge assuming you don’t get early game power armor.

 

[Gizmojunk]

I must disagree. The architecture in DC, the art-deco flavoured dark concrete with the "angel" figures and monolith faces...

This is not the contention. The figures on the buildings are easy to add, and make look like the loading screens, and the FO2 oil rig.

This is the contention:

Most of the areas look like ruined 1950's locations, but the war happened in 2077. Neighborhoods wouldn't have—shouldn't have looked like this.

Everything is beautifully done, but it's a 1950's IN the future, rather than the future imagined in the 1950's.

Look at these two scenes:

Which one looks futuristic?
Why would they have telephone poles in the second one, from FO3?

Just look at the church from Fallout.

2077: Cathedral:

2277: Other churches seen in the later series

Bethesda pushes the angle that Fallout's 2277 world is like 1955 on hold, with lasers & robots.....and greasers.

...and 50's diners with Wurlitzers.

Black Isle used Forbidden Planet as their inspiration.

It is an example of a 1950's idea of the future; not Fallout's... not that far in the future, but Fallout is their ''world of tomorrow" land blown to hell; not their present day blown to hell in the future. The architecture should have matched the setting; it's D.C., not the Western desert.

_________


Look at the culture in Fallout:

It ain't Butch (so to speak). Culturally everything 50's~ish in Fallout is pre-war salvage... except for general design aesthetics being like B-movie flash Gordon props.

This does not look like a laser they would have built in the 50's if they could...

This kind of does; that's the problem with it.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Firstly I would argue at this stage you are somewhat splitting hairs. You've already conceded that they did achieve tonal consistency with the reto-future design of the original games in the map's most prominent area. Secondly I would argue that most areas did not look like your example in Fallout 3(both pictures of which are the same town, I believe) but also that having some suburbs follow more traditional real life design philosophy is fine, it's useful for a breakup of visuals and I believe the usage of the true "retro-future" architecture elsewhere makes up for it, and firmly establishes the aesthetic. Now, you won't get me running down defending all of Fallout 3's town designs. Places like Arefu and Megaton are literal garbage and I won't defend their design, but my point still stands that the overal art-style is consistent.

Secondly, I don't agree with your, what I would consider arbitrary, distinction between 50's retrofuture. Especially considering Interplay's portrayal of the pre-war world infused plenty of straight up 50's visual elements and motifs, and it was absolutely fine because in truth the difference of "50's world of tomorrow" and "50's as they thought the world of tomorrow would be" is basically non-existant and not a distinction Interplay itself believed in.

Here is I believe where one of the most important aspects of the Fallout aesthetic seems to come in, that I do agree Bethesda fails at but not for the art-design of the old world stuff.

The 50's retrofuture serves a purpose of making the Old World a distinct relic, it is 50's because it deliberately evokes a bygone era (and also the "Fear the A Bomb" cultural zeitgeist) and the new world, the Wasteland, has no 50's in it at all because it's completely culturally distinct from the pre-war world. I agree. The Wasteland should be a place with lots of punk-inspired Mad Max style visual design, contrasted against a background of rusting 50's retrofuture. I would say that the Greaser example with the Tunnel Snakes is perhaps a poor one since you would expect pretty rationally that Vaults would preserve pre-war culture well enough, and Vault serve the same thematic juxtaposition purpose too so the 50's aesthetic continuing in there is well enough. However I do get your point and Beth Fallout is full of examples of misunderstanding this difference. On this I already agree. My point was that Adamowicz's aesthetic nails the look of the pre-war era and is entirely consistent with that of its portrayal in the originals. You obviously will not get me defending Bethesda's broad portryal of the Old World and the Wasteland, so don't conflate them.

I will say on the energy weapon design, you are being deliberately dishonest. Please tell me straight that these don't look anything at all like a gun taken from the cover of a 50's comic-book.

The weapons of Interplay Fallout were 50's retrofuture with mixes of real-life weaponry (more often than not, in the case of Fallout 2). Whilst I don't remember 3's weapon roster much at all, New Vegas carried that out beautifully. Designs like the 12.7mm Submachine Gun could fit right into Fallout 1.

I don't mean to defend Bethesda's approach to the retrofuture in its totality, that wasn't my point. New Vegas is evidence enough of my point, since it handles the Old World and the retrofuture correctly but the art-style is the same.